Free Shinju by Laura Joh Rowland Page B

corridor. Midori ducked beneath the window so they wouldn’t see her. As she turned the corner, more female voices filtered through the thin paper windows: her father’s concubines gossiping with their attendants as they groomed themselves or sewed. A baby cried. Someone began to play a tune on the samisen, then stopped suddenly.
    â€œNo, no!” she heard her younger sisters’ music teacher scold. “Too fast!”
    The melody began again, slower this time. Midori slipped past the music room, thankful that the children were occupied and couldn’t tag along after her.
    Finally she reached her destination, a door at the north end of the women’s quarters. She slid it open and peered cautiously inside. The corridor was empty. She darted across it and throughanother door that stood opposite—into Yukiko’s bedchamber, where Lady Niu had forbidden everyone to go.
    Midori closed the door behind her and looked around the chamber. All the windows were closed, allowing only a dim light from the corridor to filter in. She could barely make out the pattern of silver leaves on the white paper that covered the spaces between solid wooden doors leading to the adjacent rooms. Unlit charcoal braziers in the floor gave off no heat. A chill settled over Midori, one only partially due to physical cold. She hugged herself for warmth and comfort.
    All Yukiko’s things—her bedding, clothes, floor cushions, writing desk, calligraphy implements, and toilet articles—had been put away. The mats had been swept and the cabinets that covered one wall closed. The bare room offered no sign that Yukiko had once lived there, or even existed.
    A sob caught in Midori’s throat. The room’s impersonal emptiness finally brought home to her the fact that Yukiko was really gone. Even the sight of Yukiko’s shrouded body, laid out in the family chapel amid smoking incense burners and chanting priests, hadn’t done that. Tears coursed down her face as she realized that Yukiko’s death was not, after all, a nightmare from which she could awaken.
    Dropping her shoes, she wiped her tears away with her sleeve. She must wait to mourn her sister. Now she had something else to do—something she’d been meaning to do for months. With Yukiko dead, it seemed more important than ever. She hurried over to the cabinets and flung the doors open. Then, frantic with her need to finish and escape before someone found her there, she began a wild search through the shelves of neatly folded clothing.
    Her brave resolve almost crumbled. Touching Yukiko’s kimonos, she could feel her sister’s presence. She could smell the elusive flowery scent of her bath oil. Midori’s eyes blurred again, and a tear dropped onto the clothing. But she forced herself to move on to a large chest that sat on the floor beneath the shelves.There, under a stack of summer kimonos, she found what she’d been looking for: A pile of volumes, each a thick sheaf of cream-colored mulberry paper bound with a black silk cord.
    Yukiko’s diaries.
    Midori snatched up the top volume. Carrying it over to the window where the light was best, she opened it, heart pounding. Now she would—or at least she hoped she would—learn why Yukiko had died. Despite her bold declaration to the handsome
yoriki
, she wasn’t all that sure that Yukiko hadn’t committed suicide. Lately her sunny, tranquil sister had seemed moody and withdrawn. All Midori did know was that Yukiko always recorded her thoughts, as well as her daily activities, in her diary. Now the diary would tell Midori whether Yukiko had really had a lover and grown desperate enough to take her own life—or whether something else had led to her death. Midori scrabbled impatiently through the soft pages, looking for the last entry. But halfway through, a passage caught her eye. With the tip of her tongue caught between her front teeth, she began to